Unlike every other announced or about-to-announce candidate in the Republican presidential field Newt Gingrich will be skipping this weekend’s Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington.

“He was invited and we would love to have him if he can make it happen,” said Gary Marx, executive director of the coalition. “But his team said his schedule really just wouldn’t allow it, and that they’d send a video message.”

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POLITICO 44

Mitt Romney is flying in from New Hampshire to address the group of evangelicals and social conservatives, and Tim Pawlenty is coming off a three-day swing through Iowa. Ron Paul, Michele Bachman, John Huntsman, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain will all be speaking to the gathering. Thaddeus McCotter, who is currently mulling a 2012 run, will appear on stage. Even fantasy candidates Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan are going, as well as 2012 dropouts Donald Trump and Haley Barbour.

It’s the coalition’s second event of the GOP primary, following its Iowa forum at Waukee’s Point of Grace Church. And the stakes are high.

“In 2012 we will mail, phone, and text an estimated 29 million Tea Party and pro-family voters and distribute 35 million voter guides to turn out the largest conservative vote in a presidential election in the modern era,” writes Ralph Reed, the coalition’s founder and chairman, in an open letter in the conference’s program. “That is just the beginning. We will not rest until America is restored to greatness through a return to its founding principles.”

Gingrich has had no public schedule this week. Though he typically attends screenings of his documentaries, he didn’t appear at the Central Texas Tea Party’s showing of “America at Risk: The War with No Name” on Tuesday. “We would have liked for him to be there,” said Patrick Shocky, who works for the group. “That would have been wonderful.”

Readers' Comments (17)

Love this parade of "Want to Be's"... What a crowd... Let's see what the best have to offer... Can't wait for the pairing down to the main couple... From this bunch we may see the "want to be president and vice president"... Not impressed, have to say... These are not what I see as leaders of this great nation... Let the horse race begin...

Ralph Reed the scammer wants to take us back to our "founding principles?"

You mean lobbyists, bribery, and lies. Jack Abramoff's buddy Reed is a phony. This is what he did with Abramoff and Grover Norquist.

"In 1999, Abramoff subcontracted Reed’s firm to generate opposition to attempts to legalize a state-sponsored lottery and video poker in Alabama, an effort that was bankrolled by the Choctaw Tribe in order to eliminate competition to its own casino in neighboring Mississippi. Reed promised that Century Strategies was “opening the bomb bays and holding nothing back” and his firm ultimately received $1.3 million from the Choctaws for this effort, which included engaging the Alabama chapter of the Christian Coalition, as well as influential right-wing figures such as James Dobson, to work to defeat the proposals.

The strategy had one small problem: the Alabama Christian Coalition had an explicit policy that it “will not be the recipient of any funds direct or in-direct or any in-kind direct or indirect from gambling interests.” (Emphasis in original.) Knowing this, Reed and Abramoff worked to hide the source of the $850,000 paid to the Christian Coalition for its anti-gambling efforts by funneling money from the Choctaws through Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington, DC anti-tax organization headed by their old College Republican friend Grover Norquist. When asked why the tribe’s money had to be funneled through conduits such as ATR, a Choctaw representative stated it was because Reed did not want it known that casino money was funding his operation: “It was our understanding that the structure was recommended by Jack Abramoff to accommodate Mr. Reed’s political concerns.”

Nonetheless, Reed repeatedly assured the Christian Coalition that the funding for its work was not coming from gambling interests. This was technically true as the Choctaws were paying for it out of their non-gambling revenue, though their objective was obviously to protect their own gambling interests and revenue. According to emails obtained during a Senate investigation into Abramoff’s activities and reported in the media, Reed was well aware of who was paying for this anti-gambling effort. When the information began to surface in the press and the Christian Coalition learned of the source of the $850,000 it had received, it demanded an explanation from Reed who apologized in a letter saying he should have “explained that the contributions came from the Choctaws,” thus admitting that he had been fully aware of the source of the funding. But by the time Reed offered his “after-the-fact apology,” the gambling initiative had been defeated and the Christian Coalition had been duped.

When word of Reed’s work for Abramoff first broke, Reed claimed that he had “no direct knowledge of [Abramoff’s lobbying firm’s] clients or their interests.” But according to the report recently released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on Abramoff’s bilking of the tribes, Reed was informed by Abramoff as early as 1999 that the money that was funding his anti-gambling operations was coming from the casino-owning Choctaw tribe.

The report published an email Abramoff sent to Reed instructing him to “page me with a page of no more than 90 words ... informing me of your completion of the budget and giving me a total budget figure with category breakdowns. Once I get this, I will call Nell [Rodgers] at Choctaw and get it approved.” A subsequent email to Reed asked him to send “invoices as soon as possible so I can get Choctaw to get us checks asap.”

Thus, Reed was clearly aware that the funding for his anti-gambling work was coming from the Choctaw and that he was indirectly working to protect the tribe’s multi-million dollar gambling interests. Despite the repeated references to the Choctaw in Abramoff’s emails, Reed continued to publicly insist that he did not know the source of the funding."

Newt should skip the 2012 election too. I used to think he would be a great presidential candidate...But that was before he undermined Paul Ryan with the "right wing" talk. I don't know why he is still in this.

"Mitt Romney is flying in from New Hampshire to address the group of evangelicals and social conservatives, and Tim Pawlenty is coming off a three-day swing through Iowa. Ron Paul, Michele Bachman, John Huntsman, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain will all be speaking to the gathering. Thaddeus McCotter, who is currently mulling a 2012 run, will appear on stage. Even fantasy candidates Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan are going, as well as 2012 dropouts Donald Trump and Haley Barbour."

how the heck did I not get this on my calendar?....heck, these are all legitimate guys....I mean Thaddeus McCotter is gonna be there, for goodness sake! Just a friendly "my Jesus is better than your Jesus" meeting...they're gonna stumble all over each other to see who can out-God each other...should be more "sucking up" at this event then at a "Flowbee" demonstration...Fox News is probably wetting itself in anticipation..."...and now let's go to Chris Wallace as he covers Rick Santorum's 'Ten Reasons Why We Should Vilify Breastfeeding" speech...maybe I can just go and sneak in...or, I could say I'm Donald Trump's hair stylist...or Haley Barbour's dietician....of Paul Ryan's comedy writer...of Marco Rubio's translator, or Herman Cain's "able", or Rick Santorum's personality, of John Huntsman's polo instructor, or Michele Bachman's history teacher, or Ron Paul's....oh, well, just Ron Paul....

Ralph Reed the scammer wants to take us back to our "founding principles?"

You mean lobbyists, bribery, and lies. Jack Abramoff's buddy Reed is a phony. This is what he did with Abramoff and Grover Norquist.

The only difference between Ralph Reed and Newt Gingrich from a moral perspective is that Ralph Reed has not yet been completely caught yet. Abramhoff got it the first time around, and rightfully so, but Reed was there, and his "moral compass" seemed to be failing him.

Newt Gingrich has been caught in an infidelity of another sort, and has admitted to it. He fell for a younger woman, as many men of power have, but he is facing it. Yet it still could cost him the Presidency. Gingrich has converted to Catholicism, and will hopefully be a better person for it - with or without the Presidency. Reed has made a second chance for himself, but those are rare, and it is unlikely that Americans of faith will tolerate another series of 'questionable ethics' from Ralph Reed. God forgives, American voters aren't really so understanding.

Newt did not simply fall for another woman...he delivered divorce papers to his first wife while she was in hospital with a near fatal cancer; he then had a 6 year affair with his current wife Callista while married to his second wife...handed his second wife divorce papers when she was found to have a serious illness...then married his former mistress...he went after Bill Clinton for having an affair with his intern while he himself was having an affair with his current wife - former mistress...I don't want to see Gingrich and his former mistress in the white house...or on the front page...what's done is done...but a man who treats women so shabbily will not treat our country any better...he seems to have no core pricipals and will do whatever it takes to get what he wants...he knows we know...but he'll keep sticking his face up front because he desperately needs the attention...